


foolish fragile mind

by ODed_on_jingle_jangle



Series: while your colors bleed [3]
Category: Dare Me (TV 2019), Dare Me - Megan Abbott
Genre: Angst, Blackouts, Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Introspection, Mental Instability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22652641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ODed_on_jingle_jangle/pseuds/ODed_on_jingle_jangle
Summary: If Addy really was her memory, Beth doesn’t think she would recall any pain beyond the jackhammer hangover.If Addy really was her memory, Beth thinks she would remember a night of drinking and dancing and things she definitely wanted to happen.But Beth doesn’t actually need to remember Kurtz’s tongue in her mouth to know she didn’t want it there.
Relationships: Beth Cassidy/Addy Hanlon, Colette French/Addy Hanlon
Series: while your colors bleed [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1617898
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	foolish fragile mind

**Author's Note:**

> Tried my hand at a Beth character study, I guess? Takes place in the same continuity as my Addy/Colette AU, so I have it in that collection even if that relationship isn't a focal point of this fic. Some book spoilers ahead, as I'm merging canons. On that note, I did not take Beth's "I remember everything," line in s1e5 to be referring to her assault. 
> 
> I don't actually think Beth does remember the entirety of her assault, given how heavily intoxicated she was. I think her line actually refers to the drunken sexual encounter she and Addy had, that Addy spends much of the book ignoring, avoiding, and almost pretending didn't happen. I can't imagine that is something they would scrap in the TV series, as I think both the encounter itself and each girl's response to it really impacted their relationship. But perhaps I'm wrong and it will be scrapped, as they've changed some other things and personally, I don't think book!Addy and tv!Addy are quite the same.

If Addy really was her memory, Beth doesn’t think she would recall any pain beyond the jackhammer hangover. 

If Addy really was her memory, Beth thinks she would remember a night of drinking and dancing and things she definitely wanted to happen. 

But Beth doesn’t actually need to remember Kurtz’s tongue in her mouth to know she didn’t want it there. 

* * *

Beth remembers she had underwear on before she went to the Playland motel. Hot pink underwear dotted with black hearts, black elastic waistband. She doesn’t remember Kurtz pulling them off, but he must have, because she didn’t have them upon waking up at Coach’s, fucking frigid Colette French’s fancy housewife’s-empty-dream house right out of a bargain brand discount catalog. 

The worst place to wake up in, God, maybe even waking up in the back of Kurtz’s car would’ve been better. She doesn’t remember exactly what happened, but she does remember the car. She remembers stumbling, the world wavering before her eyes, being ushered into the back seats that smelled like spilled liquor. 

She doesn’t have to remember being pushed down to know that she was. Doesn’t need to have his hungry wolf’s grin memorized to know it was splitting his face when his hands pulled her legs apart. Doesn’t need to recall those hands, big, calloused and dirty, squeezing fawn brown bruises into the insides of her thighs to know that that’s exactly where they came from. 

Not remembering doesn’t mean it didn’t happened, Beth knows it happened in every fresh bruise she counts, in the dull ache of the wounds in her tongue, the absence of her underwear and the fact that he won’t stop fucking reminding her, her phone exploding with text after text, as if she enjoyed being too drunk to see straight in the back of that shitty, stinky car, too senseless to struggle against whatever he wanted. 

It isn’t just what Kurtz did that’s haunting Beth, the size of it all, the horror of what she can piece together, but also the horror of what she can’t. 

He fucked her. Opened her legs, plunged inside. But what else? 

When did her yank her necklace so hard it cut the skin and snapped the clasp? Did he put his penis anywhere else? Cram it into her slack mouth? Flip her onto her belly like a penguin and plow into her ass? 

Wondering, wondering, wondering until her head spins makes Beth sick to her stomach, makes her want to scream until her lungs pop. 

And nobody notices a damn thing. She doesn’t expect Bert to, Bert never notices anything important. She doesn’t expect her mother to, cut the woman open and she bleeds vodka. But Addy? 

Addy should notice. Addy should know, Beth shouldn’t have to tell her, she should just know. They used to be close enough to know when something was wrong automatically, as if it were telepathy. As if their very souls were bound, as if one’s pain was also the other’s. 

But Addy’s been drifting further and further away and it got ten times worse once Coach showed up. Once Addy decided she’d rather be Coach’s pet than Beth’s friend, once she started chowing down on Coach’s pussy and pretending she wasn’t, as if it wasn’t obvious to anyone with eyeballs. Beth is losing Addy bit by bit and already she’s lost so much of her, that somehow, Addy doesn’t even notice when Beth is breaking down right in front of her face. 

Addy doesn’t see Beth anymore, not really, just sees Coach. Coach and her ice cold allure, tight peach of an ass, gaze as sharp as shark teeth. 

It makes Beth want to strangle her, strangle them both. Addy for leaving. Coach for taking her away. If she loses her sanity like she lost her underwear then she might actually fucking do it! Wrap her hands around Addy’s gorgeous throat and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, sob, sob, sob. 

_See me now, you fucking traitor?_

She’ll watch Addy’s eyes go wide and terrified, the way she’s felt inside ever since Addy abandoned her. She’ll squeeze the life right out of her and feel the last beat of Addy’s heart thrum against the heart line on the inside of her palm. 

And then she won’t strangle Coach, actually. She’ll take Will’s gun and press the muzzle to her breast, shoot the heart right out of her chest. Watch it fly, watch it go splat to the wall and drop to the dirty floor. 

_That’s what you get, you cheater, you thief, you fucking cougar._

Coach’s was the last place Addy should’ve dragged her to for help. Why the hell would Coach ever help Beth? Would Coach even think what happened to her is wrong, is rape? When she herself is screwing Addy? 

Of course not. No one would. 

They would blame Beth. They’d blame the length of her skirt, or the drinks she kicked back, or the flash of her smile somebody else decided was seductive. Fuck everything, Addy’s the only one who might’ve given a shit once upon a time, back when she was Beth’s girl. 

But she sure as hell ain’t Beth’s girl anymore. 

* * *

Beth throws herself into practice harder than ever because it’s all she has now. She shows off in front of Tacy, in front of all of them, flaunts her athleticism and her razor edge technique. She’s Top Girl again and it didn’t come without cost, but she will hold onto it with all her strength and never let it slip through her fingers again. 

Tacy can take Bert, Coach can take Addy, Kurtz can take her underwear, but no one can take away cheer. 

* * *

  
Beth wakes from nightmares and opens her laptop to keep herself from falling back to sleep only to have another one. Sometimes she listens to heavy metal, lets the screams raze her eardrums, thinks about her own silent screams she can only stuff into pillows so many times. Wonders if she should start her own metal band so she can scream out loud, all the time, and it won’t seem like weakness if anyone else hears. 

Sometimes she watches the recording of Coach and Will and comforts herself with the fact that she has a little leverage in this, at least. Oh, there are things she could do with this. If this got out, Coach’s life would be over. 

Scandal doesn’t sleep in Sutton Grove. It’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody, once a secret slips free, it makes its way around. Everyone would turn on Coach, call her _slut, whore, cheater, adulteress, succubus, bitch._

Maybe she’d even be forced to quit. That’s if people knew she was two-timing on her husband with Will, let alone if they knew she was three-timing on her husband with the sarge and a student. 

But Beth could never do that to Addy. As furious as she is with Addy, Addy who shreds her heart over and over without batting an eye, she could never expose her that way. Addy could never live something like that down in this small town, especially if the squad turned on her. If they accused her of fucking Coach to get her favor, kicked her to the bottom of the totem pole out of their own jealously, turned her into the new Tacy for daring to go that far. 

Besides, the only footage she has is the footage of Sarge Will and Coach. Beth doesn’t actually have proof that Coach and Addy are fucking. No proof beyond the looks they exchange, Addy’s fingers twitching toward Coach’s in the gym, Addy following Coach to her car like a lovesick puppy, Coach coyly nibbling her lip when she gets inside. 

It’s all the proof that Beth needs, but it’s not the kind of proof that could get anybody in trouble even if she were willing to crack Addy open like that, lay her bare and bleeding. Like Addy is evidently comfortable doing to her. 

It’s not— it’s not fucking fair. 

Beth would give Addy the world and she’d rather fuck Coach? 

They swapped some drunken kisses, roamed the skin with shaky fingertips and Beth’s heart soared like finally, finally they had discovered what else they can be to each other and boom— Addy just disconnected. Never breathes a word of what they’ve done, like it never happened, like Beth was the only one who felt anything. 

And Beth assumed she had, fuck, maybe Addy didn’t actually see her that way, maybe they had two different discoveries and Addy’s was that she didn’t like girls, but then Coach shows up. Coach shows up and Addy turns to goo in her presence, moons after Coach like she got struck in the butt with Cupid’s arrow. 

That wasn’t how things were supposed to go at all. Beth could throw a wrench into it though, if she weaponed her footage. What to do with it though, what to do?

Post it to the school website? Send it to Mr. French himself? 

She thinks she likes the way the latter feels. Sure, the former would spread the news faster, almost certainly get Coach suspended, if not fired. But the latter? 

So much more personal. Maybe Mr. French would even leave her. Leave Coach the way Addy left Beth, alone, naked, vulnerable with the rest of the world standing against her. 

* * *

The nightmares never stop. 

Sometimes they’re wild, nonsensical in reality even if terrifying in the moment. Like the ones where she’s at the top of the pyramid until the fog consumes her squad and then it’s just Kurtz beneath her, squeezing her leg so hard it feels like it might fall off, until he too is gone and Beth is left in pure blackness. Or the ones where Kurtz’s wolf grin stretches wider and wider, until his whole face stretches and sprouts fur and he actually is a werewolf, morphing into this lupine monster that howls to the blood moon and tears Beth’s throat out with titanium jaws. 

But sometimes they’re so grounded in reality they could actually be real. Beth dreams she’s pregnant with his bastard, that he came inside while she was blacked out, and now she’s carrying around this damned demon spawn. That when she cries to her mom, her mom doesn’t give a shit that she was raped, but rather sees this as an opportunity to extort Kurtz for cash. Praises her for being raped because it means making a buck. 

Sometimes Beth dreams she’s in the back of his car, but this time she isn’t inebriated to the point of senselessness, she is awake and aware. Awake enough to say ‘no,’ and she screams it in fact, screams, ‘NO, NO, NO,’ until her throat goes raw, but Kurtz only laughs and splits her open anyway. Sometimes Addy is right there, right outside the window, but when Beth calls for help, she turns away and makes out with Coach instead. 

The nightmares are so horrible that half the time, Beth wants to run headfirst into the wall. 

She wants to bash her skull open so the nightmares fall out of it, so they spill free with her blood and her brains and never again devour her happier dreams. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from another Herizen song.


End file.
